


Money, Mikan, and Strawhats

by kkuroshii



Series: A Pirate's Life For Me [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Luffy really surpasses expectations, Nami and Luffy's first meeting, Nami's POV, they're my brotp guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23922352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kkuroshii/pseuds/kkuroshii
Summary: Nami's no stranger to pirates. She knows their nature. How each one of them is cruel and uncaring of anyone but themselves. That's what she thought at least, until a boy falls out of the sky and suddenly she wonders if, just this once, she might be wrong.Nami and Luffy's first meeting and the chaos that follows.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy & Nami
Series: A Pirate's Life For Me [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560082
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	Money, Mikan, and Strawhats

**Author's Note:**

> We love the strawhat meetings! Thinking of adding another chapter for the Arlong Park portion of her recruitment because I really felt like that's when she joined the crew for good but we'll see

Nami’s running.

Running _away_ if she’s being specific, but she’s not exactly worried.

God only knows it’s not the first time.

Only this time the men chasing her are pretty fast, she’s in a town she’s never been in before, and she hadn’t exactly planned to get caught, so she’s got no backup plan of escape.

She thinks of pirates and tangerines, of sudden gunshots and screaming, of eight years of silent suffering, and decides that being taken out by a crew of _clowns_ , of all things, is not how she wants to go.

Except her incredible bad luck rears its ugly head and she’s suddenly barely ahead of the pirates, they must have taken a different route, a short cut to get closer. As familiar as she was with running, she wasn’t the fastest person out there and they were very steadily gaining. Cursing herself for thinking they wouldn’t be a problem, she grips the map in her hands so tight that she thinks she might be ripping it. How did she get caught by these buffoons of all people? She looks at them and they’re laughing among themselves, likely at her predicament. One might’ve said something to her but she’s not entirely sure, her mind full of possible ways to get out, all being discarded one by one with dizzying speed. Nami wasn’t an expert cat burglar for nothing (not that it seems to be helping her much at all at the moment). 

Despite Nami constantly getting dealt a bad hand by fate she decides to try her luck with the man upstairs. 

_Please God_ , she thinks as the men creep closer. _Not here. Not yet._

Amazingly, her prayers are answered.

Her saving grace falls from the sky.

One minute it’s intimidating silence, broken only by her heavy breathing and the loud footsteps of the pirates behind her, and the next there’s the abrupt sound of a cannon, followed by a loud screaming that has everyone looking up to the sky. Whatever is falling is heading towards them so fast that Nami only has time to register that she really should _move_ , before it’s slamming into the ground, cracking the stone street where she had been standing only moments before. She’s thrown off to the side and scrambles to get back up, desperately blinking the dust out of her eyes. 

She coughs once and readies herself to run again, thanking whatever gods are out there for this brief distraction when a shout from one of the pirates stops her.

“I-It’s a kid!”

“He fell from the sky!”

What?

At the exclamations, she stalls and turns to face the rising dust cloud. Though nervous, she waits a moment to see. NOT that she was into dead bodies or anything, as whoever fell from that height after being hit by a canon was surely dead, she just…

Her thoughts are cut off by a sudden shout.

“Who’s shooting cannonballs at me!? Ouch!”

No Way.

Nami watches as the dust clears and...

A boy appears, standing tall and looking disgruntled. He stands up, one hand on his straw hat, the other brushing off his shirt and shorts as though he had simply tripped on a walk rather than fallen who knows how many feet from the sky. 

Everything slows as Nami realizes _this is it_. And she takes her chances.

“Oh, Boss!” She shouts. “You came to rescue me!”

She catches the man’s eye briefly, as she gestures at him, and for a moment, one tiny portion of a second, she sees something. 

Bellemere used to say Nami can feel the importance of the clouds, of small air shifts and breezes. Nami has a keen eye, she has to, to be the best navigator she could be. Her mother always said that her eyes didn’t just apply to the sky, that with eyes like that you’ll pick up more to the world than others. The weight of important people passing through her life shows in their eyes, just like a thunderstorm shows in the graying cumulus. She can feel when people carry an impact on the world within them. 

It strikes her, then, of the weight of his sudden appearance. She can feel it, there are goosebumps rising on her arms in tandem with the shiver that runs through her body.

She was terrified. So she does the thing that comes naturally to her.

She breaks eye contact and takes off like the wind, leaving four confused men in her wake. “I’ll let you take care of those guys!” And with that, she’s gone, sparing only a second of guilt for throwing the straw hat boy under the bus.

Or so she thought.

Inexplicably, Nami finds her thoughts being drawn back to the stranger again and again, despite her attempts to clear him from her mind. Sighing, she decides to circle back around the block and climbs up onto the roofs of the houses.

It’s out of morbid curiosity that she wonders what will happen to her unfortunate savior. So she contents herself to watch as they beat the poor man to a pulp. It’s the most thanks she can offer him.

And again, that’s what she thought.

She makes it in time to see his hat go flying and his passive expression turn to pure rage. A far cry from the calm, indifferent expression he had been wearing previously. Nami shivers at the abrupt change. Immediately his fist goes flying into the closest pirate's face and sends him sprawling into the street, hard enough to crack the cobblestone. He catches his hat and glares at the other pirates, his anger only barely pacified from the look on his face.

“Don’t touch my hat.” And that’s the only warning the rest of the pirates get.

Instead of the one-sided beatdown, pirates-on-kid, she had been expecting, it becomes a one-sided beatdown but with _kid_ -on-pirates. Three pirates lay dazed in the ground as the straw hat boy stands between them, not a scratch on him.

Well, this is a development she can get behind.

“Wow!” Nami shouts down at him, catching his attention. “You’re pretty tough.” He gazes up at her with a surprising lack of interest. Nami’s slightly irritated at his obvious indifference, but she hides it and continues. “You beat those swordsmen with your bare hands!”

“Uh… who’re you?”

It’s not often she gives out her real name to strangers, but she decides just this once, for the sake of having a possible ally (or sacrifice, she’s not picky) she’ll be honest.

“The name’s Nami. Wanna team up with me?”

His expression changes for the first time since she got on the roof. His mouth slides into a slight frown and his eyebrows lower. It almost looks like he’s the irritated one. Which she supposes is valid considering how she just threw him to the pirates but, semantics. So she’s surprised that what he says next has nothing to do with that.

“Robbing pirates?”

“Yeah!” She says, swinging her legs. “I’m a thief who steals from pirates. I bet if we teamed up we could get a ton of money!”

He blinks at her. And then following the annoying pattern of going completely against her expectations, he turns on his heel and walks away from her. 

“I’m not interested in teaming up with you.”

“H-hey! Wait!” What’s with that lack of hesitation? He didn’t even consider it! Intent on this alliance she hops down from the roof and trails after him, attempting small talk to soften him up.

“So… what’s with the hat?” This draws his attention and he looks over at her where she’s walking next to him. “When they nearly damaged it you got really mad! Is it expensive?”

“It’s my treasure.”

Treasure? That ratty old thing? Nami fights off the urge to laugh. In what world is that old hat worth anything?

“Oh wooow! Treasure! I wonder if there are any jewels inside it...Maybe it’s a treasure map!” She peeks at him for any sort of reaction. Unfortunately, just like with everything else she does, he seems uninterested and just keeps walking. Eventually, she lures him away to a random house when she sees how his eyes light up at the prospect of food and they find themselves sitting at a dinner table in an abandoned home. Food seems to loosen him up and he starts to answer more of the questions she asks.

“So you got separated from your crew? How many people are in it?”

“Only one.”

He asks about the house and she ends up telling him about how the inhabitants, along with the rest of the town ran away to avoid being collateral damage in the wake of the pirate Buggy. Nami also ends up learning that this kid is an absolute idiot and finds herself re-explaining multiple times to get it through his thick skull. Maybe she should re-evaluate this alliance...

“It’s so tiring talking with you!”

“Shishishi calm down!” Sighing, she moves on from their topic of Buggy.

“My goal is to get 100 million berri, then I’m going to buy a certain village.” Her voice gets softer than she means it to on the last part and he looks up at her, dark eyes focusing on her face.

“Buy a village?” He says slowly, drawing it out. “100 million is a lot, you’d have to steal from a lot of pirates.” His words have an odd weight to them, like her next sentence is going to be evaluated, as though her entire dream is being put under scrutiny. She shakes her head a bit at that and continues with confidence.

“I’ve got a plan for that!” Nami lists off her plan to strawhat, showing off the Grand Line map she stole. “So what do you think? Don’t you want to team up and earn a bunch?” She knows as soon as she says it that he won’t care one bit. In fact, ever since she mentioned the map he seemed distracted like he was listening but focusing on something else. When she’s done his eyes refocus on her face.

“By any chance, do you know how to navigate?”

“Yeah! Of course I do. There aren’t a lot of people who know more about it than me. Especially since I love the sea.” His eyes light up and suddenly she feels as though she said something she shouldn’t have. The feeling that she just put something in motion that can’t be stopped intensifies as his eyes light up and he jumps to his feet.

“That’s great! We’re also on our way to the Grand Line!” They’re headed there too? Maybe she could stick with him for a bit longer…

“Really?”

“Yeah! Hey, why don’t you come and join our crew as our navigator?” Really? Maybe she’ll have someone she can sail with, even if it’s just for a short while before she inevitably leaves again. The idea of maybe having a short term friend until she makes it to the Grand Line fills her with a bit of warmth and she starts to smile, until the next thing he says makes her feel like she’s been doused with ice water. “Become a member of our pirate crew!”

Pirates? _Pirates?_ This kid is a pirate? Something in her snaps.

“NO WAY!” Nami shouts, before struggling to regain control over her temper. Unbelievable, she should know better than to look forward to something without pirates ruining it. She quickly adamantly refuses his offer while trashing pirates simultaneously.

“Ah, I get it. You’re going to use the map in that hat of yours to find treasure.”

“I told you this hat isn’t a treasure map!” She scoffs.

“Yeah right. Why else would that stupid rag of a hat be called treasure.” Whoops, her pleasant facade is starting to slip. Not that it matters, if he’s a pirate he deserves to be treated like dirt.

“I got this hat a long time ago from a friend. It’s my precious treasure.” He takes off the hat and looks down at it in his hand, an unreadable expression on his face. “I swore to gather up a crew and become a pirate to that person.”

Oh? This does surprise her a bit. He seems to be startlingly candid, his claim doesn’t appear to be a lie, something that astonishes her. But the fact remains that he’s a pirate. Nami turns away from him and hops off from her seat on the table. 

“Everything is ‘Pirates this’ and ‘Pirates that’, it’s a pathetically sad era.” She whirls back around to face him and shouts.

“The things I hate most in this world are pirates! I only like money and tangerines!”

He looks slightly shocked by her outburst but says nothing. Damn it, is he really just a stupid useless pirate? Clearly Nami can’t ally with him, but surely he’s got some sort of use. He doesn’t look like he’s got anything to steal, and he’s kind of an idiot….. maybe...

“Well it looks like you’re in a fix, so I’ll consider joining your crew under one condition.”

“Really? Thanks! But what’s the condition?”

\- - -

The next thing she knows she’s staring at him through bars of a cage, contemplating how the hell she thought this was a good idea. All around her pirates jeer and laugh as they shout for her to fire the cannon in front of her. Being forced to kill strawhat was not something she had expected to come up, but he’s tied up in a cage and she’s got a cannon. It should be easy right? All she has to do is light the match, and yet…

And yet her hands shake, the matches rattling inside their box. Killing someone for the sake of her own desires? That makes her no better than any other pirate scum but…

But she can’t die here.

She _can’t_.

“Your hands are shaking.”

There’s a moment of silence as she’s yanked out of her thoughts and looks up to meet strawhat’s eyes. They’re filled with an intensity that makes any retort she had planned slip her mind. 

“A pirate swears himself to a strong oath, and you lack the strength to uphold it.”

“Oh?” Nami asks, trying and failing to keep her voice from shaking. “And what oath would that be? Killing innocent people like insects?”

“No, it’s not.” His response comes so quickly it almost cuts off the end of her sentence. “It’s the idea of being willing to risk your life.” His claim is followed by a grin, one that speaks of endless calm and infallible confidence. She can’t find a hint of fear in his blinding smile. The pirate’s chants pick up and grow in volume but fall on deaf ears.

It’s jarring, the utter confidence this kid projects despite being locked up. He sits in the cage as though it’s a throne, as if there were nowhere else he was meant to be. He has a presence that fills the air much more than it should, she can feel it closing the distance between them, the weight of his conviction. It’s smothering her and she knows with a sudden certainty that she can’t kill him.

Suddenly, a pirate stoops over her shoulder and snatches the matchbox from her hands. The next few moments are a blur as she moves without thinking, pulling out her retractable staff and smashing it into the pirate with all her might. He hits the ground with enough force to knock him out, and the rest of the crew lets out various exclamations of shock. What has she done?

\- - - 

Burnt hands, the timely arrival of a swordsman, an improperly aimed cannon, and a terrible lion tamer later, Nami finds herself standing in the ruined town next to the mayor. She watches as the pet store burns, and the dog mourns, howling it’s grief to the inferno. The scene is a little too personal, it calls up memories that hit a little too close to home. Images of fishmen’s imposing figures, of bloodied maps, and red hair stained with blood rise to the surface faster than she can keep them down. This is all pirates ever do. They take and they take, not once considering the consequences of their actions, of who they hurt in the process. How many people are out there who are just like this dog? Just like her? That have had everything taken away by people who use the claim of searching for ‘adventure’ and ‘glory’ as a guise to hide their greed and lust for violence.

“This guy, that guy…” Her voice slips out before she can stop it. “Pirates are all the same.” Nami’s aware that the mayor is watching her but she does nothing to acknowledge his presence. “Crushing everything precious to others!”

She can’t help the rage that stirs under her skin, threatening to boil over, long overdue. The arrival of the strawhat kid is the breaking point and after looking at his calm expression, she can’t hold it in any longer. 

“Oho Mr. Pirate so you’re still alive… I thought you would have been finished off by that lion…”

She tenses and the mayor takes notice, moving forward to catch her. He just barely grabs her arms as she surges forward, fully intent on wringing the strawhat kid's neck. 

“Before you get your pirate pals over to raid this village why don’t you just go to hell!” She screams. Her vision is red as she screeches at him and he manages to make her even angrier as he sports a bored expression the entire time and she absolutely _loathes_ it. The fact that he begins to walk away from her doesn’t help either. It’s only when he stops next to the dog and leans over to lightly set a rather badly damaged box of dog food on the ground that her struggling begins to slow.

Both Nami and the mayor watch, eyes wide, as strawhat plops himself down next to the dog and begins to speak.

“That’s the only one I could bring back.” He says with a cheer that’s rather unfitting of the situation. “The rest of it was eaten up if you can believe me!”

That kid… did he go up against that huge lion… for the dog…?

“It was admirable! You fought well! Well… I couldn’t see it… But I know that’s what happened.”

The dog finally breaks it’s silence and stands up, grabbing the box and begins to walk away from the ashes of his master’s shop. A few feet away he pauses and turns back to the strawhat kid. One doesn’t need to be able to speak dog to understand the following bark was a thank you.

“Yeah!” The kid says with a blinding grin. “You too!”

And Nami wonders…

\- - -

Monkey D Luffy is a whirlwind. He blows into town, falling out of the sky and wreaking havoc wherever he goes. He’s got a past, she can tell, if his hat centric fight with Buggy wasn’t already enough to go off of. He’s got this look in his eye wherever he goes and no matter what happens. One that speaks of dreams and aspirations far in the future but to him already in reach. His fight with Buggy was quick and painless for the majority involved and Nami has zero remaining doubts about his strength or their alliance. He’s boundlessly energetic, wild, reckless, and-unfortunately-a pirate, but at the end of the day, he’s a pirate who saves pet food for dogs, who protects a (not so) innocent girl, and treasures an old strawhat and adventure above what most would call ‘real’ treasure. So maybe he doesn’t exactly fit the criteria she holds to all pirates to a T. Does that mean he’s an angel? Absolutely not, after all, she just met the guy. But seeing him laugh as he tells her that he left half of their money behind for the villagers to repair their town, through her anger she can’t help but smile. Nami wonders. Maybe… just maybe… But that’s a thought for another day.

**Author's Note:**

> Depending on how bored I am and how much I want to avoid school work the next part might come quick Idk though so I'll leave it as 1/1 chapters for now


End file.
